


who will be there: eridan, karkat

by coldhope



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ficlet, M/M, Non-Sgrub AU, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-10 23:15:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/791305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldhope/pseuds/coldhope





	who will be there: eridan, karkat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [roachpatrol](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roachpatrol/gifts).



"Kar, I can't do this."

"Shut up, Ampora."

"Kar. Seriously I _can't fuckin do this_ , I'm gonna be sick, it's gonna get all over my uniform an do you have any idea how long that shit takes to clean, it's, it's, it's not cost-effective. I'm just lookin out for the bottom line here, fuckin sue me."

"Shut," you say, carefully, "up, Ampora. You are not going to be sick, you are not going to faint, you are not going to forget your fucking lines or disgrace yourself in any way, you are going to do your office fairly and with grace." You're glowering at yourself in the mirror. The uniform doesn't look half as good on you as it does on him, possibly because he's a head taller than you and whip-slender, whereas the best that can be said for you is 'sturdy.' Plus the stupid hat doesn't quite sit over your horns properly, it keeps working its way up to sort of hover an inch above your head as if floating on some kind of field of pure embarrassment.

"You shoulda got that resized, Kar," he says, and you snatch the fucking thing off and glare at him in the mirror. He's still looking pretty gross, pallid and sweaty and shaking with nervousness, but at least he's gotten to the point of making annoying and unnecessary remarks. 

"Yes, because I had time to do that since the goddamn thing was delivered. Copious time. Floods of it. To use on topics of such super importance as my fucking hat. How silly of me not to have realized." 

You're not even done pinning the last of the shit onto your tunic when the first notes of the processional sound, and you stab yourself with the shaft of one medal's pin and curse, sucking at your pierced fingers and thinking in a horrible access of frustration and anxiety and straight-up discontent that you would rather be back on the fucking battlefield amid the blaster bolts and the stink of ozone and blood and shit and burning, you'd rather be anywhere than here in this ridiculous gilded hall with all these ridiculous people waiting to see you do something so utterly pointless you'd not at first believed it was actually real. 

Something comes over Ampora at the sound of the music, though. He straightens up, brushes imaginary lint off the coils and knots of gold braid at his purple shoulder, sets his own hat at just the right angle. "Let me," he says, and his fingers are cool and deft as he finishes your decorations. They're long fingers, mobile and slender, not tapered at the tips, but his carefully shaped and filed claws make them seem elegant despite their solidity. Right now the claws are painted candy red, in your honor. It doesn't suit him. 

He still looks sick, but now it's him telling you to chill the fuck out, and you snap that you don't need to chill you are perfectly on top of this completely retarded exercise and--

\--and you are propelled gently out onto the stage, and the lights are hot and blinding and in front of you there's this roar like static over a comm wave, thousands of voices yelling at once. It settles into a sort of rhythmic pulse of noise and you realize it's them chanting your name. _Van-tas! Van-tas! Van-tas!_

Your stomach fills with phantom lead shot and your guts go hot and liquid and you think _you_ might be sick, the glaring lights and all those people yelling that you can't see and any of them might have a blaster, any of them--and your adjutant is there, unobtrusively steadying you with a hand on your back that the audience can't see. He hisses under his breath "brass it out, Kar, fuckin brass it out," and something about his stupid foppish uniform combined with the strength of the hand at your back locks out the worst of the doubt and fear. This is Eridan. Eridan, who's been with you through thick and thin and thinnest. Eridan, whose whining had kept you awake through the long hours on the _Starfall_ after the battle that blew the lifeplant and left half your crew trapped in a floating derelict. Eridan, who had held your head when the blinding headaches made you sick after days, weeks, of no sleep and little food. Eridan, whose foot you'd probably saved when you cut for the barb of the caltrop he'd stepped on and braved not only his screaming but the stream of infected matter that spurted purple down your knife. Eridan, who is Eridan. 

You straighten yourself up to whatever the fuck height the stupid hat lends you and you step to the podium, and when the yells of the crowd redouble, you just glare at the unseen throng the way you glare at everything else, and the weight of the medals on your chest doesn't mean a thing--the flaring of camera-flashes doesn't matter, the feedback squeal as you tug the mike down to face at your mouth instead of your eyebrows doesn't matter, nothing does other than the duty in front of you and the purple jerkwad behind and to your left, who will be there when you have finished this speech and who will be there, gods willing, no matter what.


End file.
